What is the state of anime in this timeline?
Since this TL has the most recent POD, and has the world that is the most similar to OTL when compared to FOM and TDOR, I think that art-wise, not a whole lot of very divergent changes, and most popular anime that we got after the POD still get made with minor butterflies and differences in their story (like how Sorairo put that One Piece still exists in The Death of Russia, despite it debuting over a year after the end of the Second Russian Civil War), I can for example see Code Geass or an equivalent to it being quite different, perhaps the whole "weak and pacifistic Japan gets occupied by a strong and aggressive foreign Western power" plot point never exists for example, or since CG is itself an alternate history anime, perhaps Britannia is replaced by a North Korea/China/East Asian equivalent country instead.
Example of One Piece art done after 9/11:
Perhaps there would be a much bigger focus on military anime centered around modern-day settings, maybe a renaissance in mecha anime in the mid-late 2000s given the whole "support our troops" feeling, more common displays of Japanese patriotism and nationalism, war not being portrayed as something inherently bad, and Korean characters being more prominently featured and portrayed in a positive light, something that I see in most war-related anime, is that they rarely portray real-life countries and groups of people, with fictional equivalents being used instead.Included in the Table of Contents for the October 2001 issue of Jump was a statement from Eiichiro Oda regarding the attacks. "There are adults who kill other people for justice. There are children who see that. One Piece will continue on for quite some time... all the while hoping for world peace."
Like the obvious Germanies and Britains that have names like Ostland and Virtania respectively, so could this world where Japan was very involved in a brutal modern conflict right next to its homeland make anime more open to portaying real-life countries and wars?, said war anime are also rarely set in the modern day, with the majority of them being either medieval fantasy or sci-fi settings, Black Lagoon is a rare example of a war/crime anime and manga set in recent times (it is set in the early 1990s, but still) that includes real-life locations and ethnic groups.
Japan and South Korea reconciling and getting closer in the early 2000s may also inspire an earlier, stronger, and more open Japanese-Korean co-operation in the anime and manga industry, with Korea not being restricted in the anime industry to outsourcing animation and only appearing in the end credits, and if Korean works pick up steam earlier, then Korean manhwa and webtoons could be almost as internationally popular as their Japanese counterparts, there would be more Korean manga artists working in Japan, and more Japanese artists working in Korea, like how Sorairo has said that Korea ITTL has an internationally popular webcomics (and I assume webtoon) industry:
So, a stronger Japan-Korea co-operation in the industry might result into something even bigger than OTL:Korea remains a very de facto secular country with love hotels, a globally popular webcomic industry and a globally popular rock music scene. It remains to be seen whether these will still be pronounced in the coming decades.
While Japan and Korea are now BFFs, on the other hand, China started to break ties with the West, and slide into authoritarianism earlier and more assertively than OTL, so Tencent may not be the international gaming giant that it is today, and the billion-dollar international media phenomena of Chinese-made anime and manga-derivative works such as Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Azur Lane may not exist, or if they exist, they will remain restricted to a China-only audience.
Chinese anime and manhua works will also be quite obscure and much less popular outside of the Great Firewall of China itself (seriously, I had no idea that games like Genshin, Honkai, and Azur Lane were not Japanese games!, they mimic the style perfectly!), so as a result, if League of Legends still gets made ITTL, then Tencent never buys Riot Games, and Riot Games IPs, alongside Blizzard games like WoW, StarCraft, and Overwatch never reach a big popularity in China.
I also wonder if the stronger Japanese-Korean co-operation might result in MMORPG games gaining popularity in Japan, like how single-player console games could reach an earlier popularity in Korea.
Also, there will likely be less Chinese people living in Japan, less Sino-Japanese economic and cultural co-operation, and thus less Chinese people working in the anime and manga industry, and less Japanese people working in Chinese media projects, which would cause some changes in the way how anime are produced, because many Japanese anime today are partially animated by Chinese studios (so technically speaking, the "Chinese Cartoons" meme is accurate lol), and also vice-and-versa, with Chinese anime being animated by Japanese studios.
Just almost a year ago, MAPPA Studio founder Masao Maruyama said that he believes that China will overtake Japan in the Anime business, even despite all of its censorship laws, he goes as far as to say that if China did not had such censorship and media restrictions, then they would have already easily surpassed Japan, so imagine all of the OTL potential of China becoming an anime powerhouse, and also the already-existing billion-dollar international industry of Chinese-made anime-styled video games, being completely thrown out of the window ITTL.
(I recall that in the 2000s, most anime was outsourced to South Korean animation studios, much like Western cartoons, it was only recently that Chinese studios have started to become more prominent)
So ITTL, Japan outsourcing anime to Chinese studios and vice-and-versa will not be a option, and also due to these different demographics, perhaps Brazilians remain the largest gaijin group in Japan, it was only quite recently that Chinese replaced Brazilians as the largest foreign demographic in Japan, either that, or ITTL, Koreans eventually replace the Brazilians.
Furthermore, with the taboo on Japanese militarism being broken, modern-day Japanese nationalism no longer being seen as inherently racist or evil (and now even being probably promoted by the West), Japan being very open and proud about their military and regional power status (isn't Japan ITTL outright looking to acquire nuclear weapons?, or have they already acquired nukes?) and co-operating with foreign military powers, may result in Japan "opening" to foreign cultures and international media markets earlier and more than OTL.
So if Japan ITTL is more open to military and economic co-operation with Western countries, you could expect more foreign influence in anime (for better or for worse), and more anime influence in Western media, like how recently Japanese studios have been making anime adaptations of Western IPs like RWBY, Scott Pilgrim, and Suicide Squad, and how Westerners such as Bahi JD have been working in Japanese anime productions.
Overall, most of what I wrote about the anime and manga industry basically is "similar as to what is happening right now, but starting in 2004 instead of 2024", other than the obvious divergences due of the popularity of military anime, the hypothetical mecha renaissance, more Korean characters, earlier Korean involvement in the industry, and lack of Chinese involvement in the industry.
Sorairo replied before I could finish my big hot take wall of text, but still, like how he said - so some of them still go to YouTube, some of them do not, I recall that ITTL, the AVGN leads a veteran charity organization of the sorts.Did the Youtubers that were drafted in this timeline ever become Youtubers after the war?
Also, I recall reading that the OTL thing that unintentionally kickstarted the career of many YouTubers of the golden age of the website was the 2008 financial crisis, plenty of young Gen Xers and Millenials lost their jobs or were faced with difficult economic situations, so they saw this interesting video-sharing website and video games as tools of escapism, and then later even careers.
Like how one could previously get a career on TV, then one could theoretically get a career in this popular thing called the internet and video game let's plays, so if the 2008 financial crisis still occurs, then maybe they would still end up on YouTube anyway, with diverging degrees of success and popularity when compared to OTL.
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